In Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie we see a family whose members are trying to learn “how to adapt to a world they don’t really fit into at all,” says the Alley Theatre’s Melissa Molano who’ll be playing the part of Laura Wingfield.
Laura is the fragile daughter of Amanda (Sally Wingert), making up her own world as a means of coping with the real one and her mother’s expectations. She carefully tends her glass menagerie of animal figurines, goes to the art museum, reads books and concocts stories. Amanda (Sally Wingert) is locked into her own dreams, those of past glories as a Southern belle. Younger brother Tom (Dylan Godwin) has a job to support his family but dreams of being a poet. He goes to the movies most nights as an escape while secreting away money that will get him away from all this.
The play is set in the 1930s and All three are crammed into a studio apartment. ” Everyone is so in their own world and the worlds but up against each other.” Molano says.
Pressed by his mother, Tom brings home an acquaintance as a possible love interest for Laura. There is some attraction between them — they knew each other in high school — but that spell is broken when Jim (Luis Quintero) announces that he is already engaged.
A memory play, all of this is filtered through Tom’s recollections of his family years later. There’s a healthy dose of guilt for leaving his sister behind — in fact, there’s guilt for all the main characters. Amanda for her husband abandoning them and Laura for not measuring up to her mother’s dreams of what her life should be.
“The play itself is not absolute reality,” Molano says. “The thing about a memory play is this is all Tom’s perspective. This is Tom’s perception of Laura. Sally is playing Tom’s perception of his mother. This is all centered around Tom. This is Tom’s mind.”
Molano points out that Amanda, however misdirected her actions are, does it out of “a deep love for her children. Sometimes Amanda can just be played as a harsh, totalitarian mother but I think the beautiful thing abot Sally Wingert’s interpretation is that it’s all driven by a deep love of wanting her children to succeed and survive.”
Anyone watching the play has to ask: why doesn’t Laura get out too? Why doesn’t she realize how dysfunctional her family is, that it’s not good to stay there with her mother.
“Of that time there wasn’t a lot of education or resource to know what’s toxic. You know what you know. It’s her safest place to be everything else is the big unknown. For a person with anxiety the unknown is even scarier. I think she knows that things are fraught and I think she knows what she feels bu I don’t think she knows it in a context that can compare it to something healthy,” Molano says..
As for whether Laura actually wants a suitor, Molano says, “I think she does want love. I think it’s the pressure of finding it on her mom’s terms is a lot to take
The play is, of course, semi-autographical, based on William’s own relationship with his mother and sister. “Laura’s nickname is Blue Roses and [Williams’] sister’s name was Rose.”
“Glass Menagerie is one of those beautiful American classics. I love Tennessee Williams,” Molano says. “There’s so many ways to approach all the characters. With Laura in particular … her tenderness and her fragility which what her character is famous for. And her sensitivity is something that I think I could always relate to.
“The thing that this family has in common is they’re all dreamers. But their dreams are in different places,” Molano says.” Tom’s dream is in the future, Amanda dreams of the past and Laura is just dreaming of a magical world around her.”
Performances are scheduled for February 21 through March 16 (Opening night February 26) at 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sundays at Alley Theatre, 615 Texas. For more information, call 713-220-5700 or visit alleytheatre.com.$28-$100
